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The English Poor; A Sketch of Their Social and Economic History
The English Poor A Sketch of Their Social and Economic History Author:Thomas Mackay General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1889 Original Publisher: J. Murray Subjects: Poor Poor laws Working class Wages England Labor and laboring classes Labor Labor movement Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing te... more »xt. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II THE SAME CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. PRIMITIVE FORMS OF SOCIETY AND THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY The earliest organised form of human society of which we have any clear knowledge is the family. The theories of anthropologists with regard to primitive marriage and to stages of human history antecedent to the institution of the family are highly interesting and important, but they are much a matter of controversy, and they lie outside the purpose of our present enquiry. In a very early stage of man's history as a social being private property was already becoming a recognised institution. Although the hunting grounds and the game which wandered there were of necessity common to all, yet the weapons of the chase were already tending to become the property of individual members of the family. The growing instinct to acquire property was first exercised upon objects which lay most convenient for appropriation, such as weapons, clothes, shelter. Each act of acquisiCh. II SANCTIONS INVENTED FOR PROPERTY 25 tion gained for the appropriator an advantage in the struggle for existence ; the act was repeated, the instinct became hereditary, the power of appropriation became a condition of survival. The necessity of private property has been pressed on man's attention by reason of the conditions by which he is surrounded. It was necessary, however, to create some sanction for this all-important principle. Human ingenuity has invented many explanations. The savage placed t...« less